Gary DeMar - Is the "millennium" a literal 1000 years?

[MrHunterdion]

Gary is correct in that the N jerusalem is referred to as the church in Hebrews and therefore the New Jerusalem has already come down and has been established on earth!

[mpenaco]

The 1,000 years of Rev 20 began at Christ's ressurection when he ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father. It's not a literal thousand but represents a great period of time when Christ and his followers rule the earth and battle against the remaining forces of Satan who Jesus defeated at the cross. We are presently living in that period which will continue until all the nations are converted to Christianity. The world that Jesus returns to will be a a christian world.

[rkg62976]

I concur. Dispensational premillennialism is false. But this man is suggesting the opposite error, Amillennialism. Both are equally erroneous. The truth about the 1000 yrs. is that it begins at Jesus' 2nd Advent, the wicked living are destroyed, the dead 'in Christ' rise, the living 'in Christ' are caught up in the air. The 1,000 yr. reign of Christ and the saints is in heaven while Satan is bound on a desolated earth with no one to tempt or manipulate. Simple enough?

[Lysimachus78]

This man is very close to the truth. If only he'd keep crawling up to it and he'll eventually get it nailed. The 1000 years will be in heaven. The earth will be an emptied abyss, torn up, and vacuumed of everything living, save for Satan and his demons. But at the END of the 1000 years, ALL the saints come back to the earth with Christ and the New Jerusalem.  All the wicked that ever lived are resurrected, Satan is loosed and convinces them to attack the New Jerusalem! Quite simple indeed! :D

[PenacoEdmonton]

This is the dispensational view which, unfortunately, does not do justice to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead of expecting victory on earth for the Christians, you are proclaiming defeat for the Gospel and victory for Satan. This is not what Scripture teaches. Is Satan more powerful than Christ? Didn't Paul say that Satan has been defeated at Christ's death on the cross? While you see an emptied abyss, the Bible sees a blessed earth filled with the kingdom of God.

[MrHunterdion]

@Lysimachus78 Problem! The new Jerusalem is referred to as the church in Hebrews as well as rev 21 so the n jerusaem has already come down!

[Jimbo3783]

There is a free book online called Paradise Restored by David Chilton. It's in pdf format. Give it a read. I think, not sure, that gary demar is a post milliennialist not an amillennialist. And there is a big difference.  But the Paradise Restored book is amazing.

[got2liv4him]

he is postmil...

[PenacoEdmonton]

I've read that book and yes, it is very interesting reading and can shake one's belief system regarding the future of Christianity. It challenges modern "prophecy experts" like Hal Lindsey and others who hold to an eschatology of despair and defeat.

[PenacoEdmonton]

I believe the thousand years in Revelation 20 is not a literal 1000 as Gary Demar explained but refers to a great period of time when Christ reigns with his disciples and those converted to Christianity. This reign began at Jesus' resurrection and will continue on until he has put his enemies and all opposition under his feet. Unlike Gary Demar though, I interpret the 1000 year reign to be here on earth. Christ is seated at his throne in heaven reigning with his living disciples on earth.

[nwowarrior]

"Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea.They went up on the breadth of the EARTH and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of HEAVEN and devoured them." Rev.20

As you can see you are incorrect,sir. The Kingdom will be on earth.

[mpenaco]

@nwowarrior I concur. The Kingdom will be on earth and will gradually grow and expand just like a mustard seed that starts small but ends up as a huge tree. The earth that Christ returns to at his second coming will be predominantly Christian and will enjoy the blessings of peace and prosperity under Christ's rule.

[joroma77]

What if the current era (the age of illusion and extreme vanity and selfishness) starts at Revelation 20:7?

[joroma77]

Maybe the "new age" movement is right, and the thousand years start pretty much now? My own preliminary understanding is that the thousand year reign was the age of british Christian kings (Jesus being the king of kings), during which human sacrifice ended in south America with the conversion to Christianity. The Bible doesn't say that the world would be perfect during the reign of Christ. In fact if you read Revelation 21:4 you will see that perfection will be achieved on the new earth.

[james46888]

Personally speaking, I see no reason to take the figure of "1000-years" as anything other than literal. After all, every other time period spoken of in the book of Revelation is literal, so why make the "1000-years" the one exception to that rule?

[jcr4runner]

The point is that you need to use a consistent hermeneutic and apply it all the way through the Bible and let that method affect your interpretation rather than making the Bible fit your preconceived interpretation.

For instance, God says in Exodus 20, "And I will have mercy through a thousand generations on those who have love for me."

If we take this "thousand generations" literally (40,000 years) then history has a long way to go and we are not living in the "end times."

Would you agree?

[james46888]

I think each passage has to be interpreted on its own context. The statement in Exodus 20 is obviously non-literal. However, in the book of Revelation, every ohter time period is always literal, so I see no reason contextually to make the 1000-years the one exception. Also, what if John really did wnat to teach that the kingdom would last 1000-years? What words should he have used? I'd argue he would've used exactly the same words we find in Rev 20.

[bereansearch]

Hello, I come from a SBC background, and by studying theology, (really God's grace,) found my way to a Reformed Baptist Church. I have just about gotten, by God's grace, my theological ducks in a row, but this issue remains. What DVD's or books do you reccomend, so I can understand both sides? What about the Gary kDeMar and Thomas Ice debate? Is it any good?

[jcr4runner]

Go to Forerunner website and see the DVDs offered there.

Link is above.

[sustoismo]

1000 yrs means a long time.

God created everything in 6 days and rested on the 7th...lets use 1 billion for a 1000 yrs ...we now have 7 billion years...now the bible says the world was created 6000 years ago...let substitute that to 6 billion years ago..now add the 7 billion and the 6 billion and that is 13 billion years ago....Now science says the universe is 13.7 yrs old. Think about it.

[ATLpirate]

You just threw context out the window. That's not very good exegesis.

[richardruhe]

WE will not all die, but WE will be changed. Q. Was paul changed?

1000 years...hmm? that would be from what? pentacost? the destruction of the temple?""Jerusalem? that would be around 1000-1077 about...isn't that the time of the council of Trent and the agrigation of Church Bureacracy? The encroachment of the Turks on Christianity and the Holy Land.

hmm?

[NsomniAtl]

Everybody misses something.

Here is wisdom. Let he who hath understanding count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is chi zhi stigma. (666 in Greek numbers)

"for it is the number of a man"---does not mean ONE male. It means ANY man, woman, or child. The Greek word is "anthropos", or "man-faced", meaning unique person, like our modern idea if identity, or ID.

If the writer had meant "one particular MALE", he would have used the Greek word "aner."

[jcr4runner]

It's possible. I have my questions over whether John is using a cryptogram.

Do you agree though that the Beast is Nero?

[jagajg]

Yeah I thank everbuddy misses sumthing. fur instance, why du pealple have such bad spellin and grammer. Mus Bee the edumucational system is failin us . Bi tha way i did naught proof reed my commants befur postin tham.

OMG did 99.9% of people fail English? Read your comments and fix them B4 posting or else this is going to be like the Tower of Babel.

[stevenbecky03]

I see no Scriptural basis for the first resurrection to be implying that it is for all believers. It says in 20:4 who it was for. So obviously it has already happend if Nero was the beast.

[jcr4runner]

The first resurrection occurs when believers are born-again.

[tempusfugit68]

It's literal because 1,000 years means 1,000 years. What's so hard to understand about that? This guy won't take it literally because he doesn't like what it says. His example of how the word one thousand is used is silly. Don't let your unbelief suspend your common sense.

[jcr4runner]

What does it mean when God promises the covenant to Abraham's descendants for a "thousand generations"? It that literally 40,000 years?

How many times is the word thousand used in the Bible and what does it mean?

It is very common in the Bible and in ancient literature in general to use "thousand" and "ten thousand" (there was no word for "million" or "billion") to mean just a very large number.

We use this idiom today. For example:

This is a question that has come up a "million" times.

[tempusfugit68]

Yes, but whenever John uses the word one thousand he means literally one thousand.

Look at Rev. 20:3. The language used there is definite. "...till the thousand years are finishes."

My question to you is when was the dragon bound for 1,000 years.

[mothcorrupteth]

The problem with this critique is, as Kim Riddlebarger has pointed out, that the same dispensationalist who is so adamant about reading "1,000 years" literally violates his own hermeneutic when he reads in Rom. 14:17 that the reign of God is righteousness and interprets this to be figurative.

[richardruhe]

if it were common sense and not revelation then what need have we of either.

It also depends on what is common. To the reader then what was common is very diff. then what is common today.

Scorpio-Balista is a common dart shootin' Jew killer in 70A.D., but today we uncommonly say "like scorpion" means the attack helicopter, animal hybrid, jurassic park escapee.

[stevenbecky03]

It seems to me that He is returning as in the days of Noah, like a theif to most.

I see this in 19:11-21

Then I see a first resurrection, (does'nt that itself imply there is two because it says FIRST?) in 20:4-6, immediately following His return.

In vs.5 it says the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished, so I take that to mean the second resurrection follows right after the thousand years.

I am not wanting to debate, I am just studying.

[jcr4runner]

The postmillennial view is that the first resurrection is that the first resurrection is for believers. It occurs at the moment of our regeneration. It is the basis for being joined to the resurrection body of Christ when we go to heaven.

The second resurrection is the bodily resurrection of the just and unjust at the last judgment.

Dispensationalists (and many premillennialists) teach TWO bodily resurrections.

Watch "Revelation: IDENTIFIED (2 of 25) Intro 1" for a discussion of this.

[stevenbecky03]

It seems from 20:9, that they were on the earth...

It does not say they were in heaven. The beheaded were resurrected, therefore had new bodies, so why could'nt it be on earth?

[jcr4runner]

It could be, but Revelation 20 does not say Jesus has returned. It does say that the resurrection of the dead takes place AFTER the millennium.

Can you show scripturally that there are TWO resurrections?

[TruthCeeker333]

Nice!